The formalization of the pre-candidacy of Flávio Bolsonaro (PL-RJ) for the presidency, announced last week, revealed the senator’s isolation between the center and right parties, which resist supporting his name and continue working to maintain Tarcísio de Freitas (Republicanos-SP) as a competitive alternative to face President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PT) in 2026.
Despite the electoral strength of the Bolsonaro clan, which carries, with its surname, the political assets of former President Jair Bolsonaro (PL), the leaders of the traditional acronyms of the conservative camp publicly declare that they do not intend to automatically join Flávio’s project.
Gilberto Kassab, for example, is one of those who declared this week that Tarcísio continues to be the number 1 option of the PSD, the acronym of which he is national president. In a statement released on Thursday (11/12), he said he wished Flávio good luck in his campaign, but that the current governor of São Paulo “is the best candidate for Brazil.”
Kassab also said that if Tarcísio chooses to seek re-election in the state and leave the presidential race next year, the PSD should throw its own name. Those currently listed are also the governors of Paraná, Ratinho Jr., or Eduardo Leite, of Rio Grande do Sul.
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Kassab’s position is also echoed by other parties, who have already made it clear that they are counting on other options than Bolsonaro’s son 01.
Deputy Doutor Luizinho (PP-RJ), leader of a bloc in the Chamber that brings together right and center parties, said the senator’s decision could strengthen the center-right’s search for its own name and that Flávio’s decision “frees” the federation to build another project.
Even the president of the PP, Ciro Nogueira (PI), ally for the first time of Bolsonaro and Minister of the Civil House during the administration of the former president, declared a few days after the announcement of Flávio’s choice that he would even support the senator, given their closeness, but gave a message: “Politics cannot be done only with friendship.”
Flávio’s comings and goings
- The pre-candidacy took on even more complex contours due to the comings and goings of Flávio himself in the days following the official announcement, made last Friday (12/05).
- After speculation arose that his father’s choice of name might be a “trial balloon,” the senator said remaining in the race would come at a “price,” linking it to the approval of an amnesty in Congress that would benefit Bolsonaro and other convicts on January 8.
- A few days after this speech, the President of the House, Hugo Motta (Republicanos-PB), proposed the PL Dosimetry, while telling journalists that the decision was not the result of external pressure. The text was approved in the early hours of Wednesday (10/12), after a day of confusion in the House, and now goes to the Senate, where it is expected to be voted on by the Constitution and Justice Commission (CCJ) next week.
With negative repercussions, Flávio backed down and began declaring that his candidacy would be irreversible, trying to avoid the impression that he was conditioning his decision on the progress of the amnesty program or some other political “prize.”
This change, however, reinforced the perception of political fragility among leaders and party leaders who were already reluctant to support him.
Yet earlier in the week, Flávio met with party leaders, including Ciro Nogueira and União Brasil president Antonio Rueda, at a dinner at his home to try to drum up support.
The next day, the senator declared: “This is not a trial balloon, there is no going back. But we are launching an appeal here: you must walk with us from the beginning,” he stressed about his candidacy.
The formalization of his name for next year’s elections took place after a visit by Flávio to his father, who is serving a sentence at the federal police headquarters in Brasilia.
According to his 01, Jair Bolsonaro gave his blessing to his son’s electoral project, choosing to retain control of political assets within the clan, excluding the possibility of ceding this electoral capital to external figures, like Tarcísio.
The decision, however, came amid an internal conflict within the family nucleus of which former first lady Michelle Bolsonaro was at the center after the former first lady publicly questioned a PL political initiative in Ceará and was accused by her stepchildren.
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